While it seemed on Friday evening that ending a partial government shutdown would just require the House to return to session today (February 2) and revote on five of the remaining appropriations bills plus a two-week extension of Homeland Security funding, it appears the process will be more difficult. Some House Democratic leaders aren't willing to push members to support the deal Senate Democrats reached with the White House to provide more time to craft reforms to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enforcement procedures, an agreement that was necessary for Democrats to provide the votes for the five-bill package plus the DHS extension to pass the Senate. (Some members of the previous slate of Democratic leaders, Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Jim Clyburn (D-SC), reportedly urged members to support the bill, however.)

Uncertain Democratic support makes it unlikely the House can consider the package on the suspension calendar, under which debate time is limited and a two-thirds supermajority is required for final passage. House Republicans will likely be required to process a rule for consideration of the five-bill package — Defense, Labor-Health and Human Services-Education, Transportation-Housing and Urban Development, Financial Services and General Government, and National Security-State Department — plus the DHS patch.

A vote to end the partial government shutdown — the other six appropriations were completed previously — could be held either Monday or Tuesday. With Democratic leaders suggesting the party is on the sidelines for the vote, the support of nearly every Republican could be required, and some conservatives are demanding that the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act voter ID bill, H.R. 22, be attached to the package.

Still, there is optimism that the partial shutdown will be short. "I'm confident that we'll do it at least by Tuesday," House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on "Meet the Press" yesterday. "We have a logistical challenge of getting everyone in town, and because of the conversation I had with [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries, I know that we've got to pass a rule and probably do this mostly on our own. I think that's very unfortunate."

Speaker Johnson also said completing most of the appropriations process under regular order, which has been elusive in recent years, was to be celebrated. "I tip my hat to everybody, appropriators in both parties, who got this together. After the Senate acted over the weekend, we will now have 11 of 12 separate appropriations bills approved by both chambers," he said. "Because they modified our package, they sent it over a little differently, which means we've got to address the bills again. So, they're going to separate the Department of Homeland Security bill."

With a 218-213 majority and questions about attendance, Speaker Johnson will have a narrow margin to pass the package, and conservatives on the Rules Committee have also sometimes created headaches for their leadership. The party ratio in the House could be 218-214 as soon as today or at least this week, after Christian Menefee won the Texas seat of the late Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-TX) in a runoff against another Democrat.

Affordability — Asked on "Fox News Sunday" about voter perceptions on pocketbook issues, Speaker Johnson, as President Trump has recently, turned the focus to the "One Big, Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA)/Working Families Tax Cut that passed last year, saying it will be implemented fully this quarter and next. "The economic growth numbers will go up. It's written for lower- and middle-class earners, and they are the ones that are going to feel the effects. No tax on tips, overtime, tax relief for seniors," the Speaker said. "The average American household is going to have $10,000 more in their pocket because of the reforms that we put in, and it will go on and on and on."

President Trump celebrated his economic successes in a January 30 editorial, "My Tariffs Have Brought America Back," in the Wall Street Journal. "The entire Trump economic agenda deserves credit for this explosion of growth and good news, including our record tax cuts, unprecedented regulation cuts, pro-American energy policies and much more!" the President said. "But without question, the credit for this economic success must go to what the Journal itself described as 'the largest economic policy shock' in more than 50 years — my tariffs!"

On CBS's "Face the Nation" yesterday, Gary Cohn, an architect of the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA) during President Trump's first term, said "affordability will be the issue between now and the midterm elections." He was dubious about some of the Administration's proposals, like a cap on credit card rates at 10% and a limit on institutional investor purchases of single-family homes, saying "those ideas probably don't solve the problem." Asked about companies announcing job cuts — a trend seemingly opposite from affordability — he said, "companies hoarded labor during and after Covid" and "they're downsizing their headcount." He added, "we have seen input costs for companies go up quite dramatically."

Crypto tax — Punchbowl News reported February 1 that the bipartisan effort to craft a cryptocurrency tax bill in the House — with Reps. Max Miller (R-OH) and Steven Horsford (D-NV) leading the effort and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) hoping to hold a committee markup soon — is bicameral. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) is crafting a bill and collaborating with Ways and Means. "It's a new policy area, and there's folks with a lot of different perspectives," Crapo said, in suggesting the issue doesn't fall along traditional party lines. Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR) is also "very interested" in the project, said the report, citing his work with Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), who has led the Senate effort. Finance members Steve Daines (R-MT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have added their names to the list of members interested in working on the issue.

Meanwhile, the effort to establish a broader regulatory market structure for crypto and other digital assets took a step forward late last week when the Senate Agriculture Committee approved, along party lines, its pieces of the market structure bill, which gives new authority to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). But the partisan vote signaled that Republicans have more work to do to draft language that could attract 60 votes on the Senate floor, and Chairman John Boozman (R-AR) pledged that bipartisan negotiations on the bill will continue. The Senate Banking Committee will also need to revisit the bill in late February or March to resolve outstanding issues with Democrats, as well as a dispute between banks and the crypto industry over paying yield on stablecoins.

Bill introductions - On January 30, Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) and a group of other Democratic senators (Smith, Blumenthal, Klobuchar, Baldwin, Whitehouse, Kim, Gallego, Murphy, and Slotkin) introduced a bill (S. 3754) to impose a tax on the purchase of single-family homes by certain large investors. "Our bill would provide approximately $50 billion over a decade to help build and preserve 2.9 million units of affordable housing and is fully paid for through a new tax that [disincentivizes] institutional investors from purchasing large numbers of single-family homes," Senator Reed said.

Senator Reed also introduced S. 3753, to provide requirements for the bulk auction or group sale of certain non-performing loans. Senator Reed said, "This legislation would reform Federal Housing Administration, FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac note sale programs to protect homeowners from foreclosure and keep properties in the hands of families and local civic institutions."

Congress — The House is back in today (February 2) with votes beginning at 6:30 p.m. on bills under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary and Veterans Affairs committees. The Senate will convene at 3 p.m. today, with a procedural vote at 5:30 p.m. on the nomination of David Clay Fowlkes to be U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Arkansas.

On Tuesday, February 3 at 10 a.m., the Senate HELP Committee will hold a hearing on "Modernizing the National Institutes of Health: Faster Discoveries, More Cures."